Ne me quitte pas receives main jury prize at Eurodok

Dutch-Belgian documentary Ne me quitte pas by Sabine Lubbe Bakker and Niels van Koevorden has received the main jury prize at the European Documentary Film Festival Eurodok.

The programme of the European Documentary Film Festival Eurodok, annually organised by Oslo’s Cinemateket, included 30 documentaries, of which eight ran in the European competition. Tommy Lørdahl, director of the Oslo International Film Festival, Lars Ole Kristiansen, editor at the Montages web magazine and director Kari Moe formed this year’s jury, offering Ne me quitte pas its main prize.

‘The winner of the Eurodok Prize 2014 is characterised by an impressive documentary craftsmanship, with an excellent camera work that contributes to blot out the distance between the filmic space and us in front of the screen’, the jury explained. ‘It is a strong story of vulnerability and addiction, fear of separation, which zeroes a human being at a place in life, where opportunities are no longer available. There are moments in the film which the jury will carry for a long time.’

Ne me quitte pas sees Bob and Marcel, two elderly alcoholics who have lost faith in life and themselves. They spend their days in Bob’s kitchen talking openly about love, life and death and share their solitude, sense of humor and craving for alcohol. Ne me quitte pas is a drama about life on the brink of society in all its beauty, modesty and irony.

The documentary previously screened at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) and is also confirmed for Hot Docs and the Tribeca Film Festival in April.

Maarten Schmidt of Storyhouse coproduced Ne me quitte pas for Flanders and could count on the support of the Flanders Audiovisual Fund/Film Fund of Flemish Cultural Affairs Minister Joke Schauvliege.